WesTrac has labored hand-in-glove with main coal miner Yancoal for greater than a decade, delivering the most recent and biggest Caterpillar machines and gear. Because the Tier 1 firm not too long ago celebrated 20 years of working in Australia, WesTrac helped roll out a brand new fleet throughout Yancoal’s New South Wales websites, with sustainability and reliability front-of-mind.
With eight producing mines throughout Australia, Yancoal is effectively versed in the advantages of getting a powerful fleet of sturdy and dependable machines. For this reason the producer and exporter has been working hand-in-glove with WesTrac for 15 years, as Yancoal’s nationwide footprint has grown.
WesTrac has delivered fleets of Cat vans, excavators, drills, and different ancillary gear to Yancoal’s websites across the nation, to the purpose the place 65% of the corporate’s fleet throughout Australia is Caterpillar. Most not too long ago, WesTrac has labored on delivering an unlimited vary of machines to 2 of Yancoal’s websites in New South Wales – Mount Thorley Warkworth (MTW) within the Hunter Valley and Moolarben close to Mudgee.
As Yancoal Govt Basic Supervisor of Operations David Bennett explains, these two websites require dependable and strong machines for the open-cut operations. “We want gear to be dependable, we want gear to be value efficient, and we want to have the ability to supply elements for our gear, whether or not it’s service kits or breakdown elements,” he says. “All of our websites have strategic plans in place for our manufacturing profiles, the fleet and the asset combine that’s required.”
He provides: “The machine we buy, whether or not it’s an excavator or haul truck, a dozer, a chunk of help gear, must be match for the duties we’re buying it for. In case you take a look at the Cat 789 Mining Vehicles and likewise the Cat 795s, they’re a sturdy truck, they function in all totally different circumstances. We will function these vans in heavy moist climate circumstances…[and] when issues get difficult on the depths of the pit, these vans will function down there safely, reliably and ship the product we want.”
On the MTW web site, three Cat 789C Mining Vehicles have achieved above and past their name of obligation. The machines have labored for twenty-four years and clocked up greater than 150,000 hours, amongst solely 12 of those fashions all over the world to take action. “That demonstrates the reliability and the robustness of the 789 mannequin,” Bennett explains.
Yancoal has invested in a wide range of Cat machines and gear through the years to maintain its fleet up to date. This 12 months, the corporate changed its Cat 6050 Hydraulic Mining Shovel at Moolarben with the brand new Cat 6060 FS Hydraulic Mining Shovel. “After we seemed on the Cat 6060 and went and checked out different websites throughout New South Wales who function that machine…it was determined the 6060 was greatest match for Moolarben,” says Yancoal Group Asset Supervisor Matt Employees. “The gasoline burn discount in that new era 6060 was a profit we checked out and made us go for the Cat product.”
Yancoal has additionally invested in a fleet of latest Cat 794 Mining Vehicles for its MTW web site, turning into the primary firm to purchase this mannequin new in NSW. The Cat 794 is without doubt one of the largest mining vans out there, and has been designed to make use of much less gasoline, decreasing engine emissions and in the end, decreasing the on-site carbon footprint.
With mounting stress on business to scale back carbon emissions and meet ESG objectives, Bennett says investing in machines just like the Cat 794 Mining Vehicles and the Cat 6060 FS Hydraulic Mining Shovel is sensible. “It simply makes good enterprise sense to function gear that’s dependable and likewise minimises gasoline burn. We look after the communities we function in so if we will get a machine way more delicate to that, then it’s greatest enterprise for us.”
Together with introducing new machines, Yancoal invested in Cat MineStar Fleet know-how to make sure a holistic strategy to fleet administration. “We had a take a look at the MineStar product, with a few of the automation we’re going in the direction of, like with our drill fleet at Moolarben and MTW and clearly the Cat fleet that we now have at that web site,” Employees explains. “We thought the MineStar product, and having that partnership with Caterpillar at that web site, can be a profit as an alternative of getting one other product.”
As WesTrac Mining Enterprise Supervisor Craig Morris explains, the OEM had been working with Yancoal to search out the very best fleet administration system for the Moolarben web site. “The most effective answer we got here up with as a gaggle was the total [Cat MineStar] fleet administration system, which is a manufacturing and upkeep device that helps them be certain that the location’s delivering what’s required. It offers you good reporting to have the ability to see what your belongings are doing and the way issues are performing not solely from an operation, but in addition a mechanical side. We’ll have a full implementation staff on that web site for a time frame to verify everybody understands the package deal that’s been delivered and what it might probably do for them.”
The WesTrac staff delivers extra than simply MineStar help to Yancoal. Each the MTW and Moolarben websites are near WesTrac branches, offering accessible aftermarket help and repair. “We’ve received discipline service that runs out of our Mount Thorley facility, which is immediately throughout the street from Mount Thorley Warkworth operation,” Morris says. “We’ve received a department in Mudgee, which is about 40 minutes from the Moolarben web site the place we help these guys. We even have various devoted assets on each websites – from a web site efficiency specialist to help reps proper by to discipline service technicians.”
As Morris explains, the proximity of WesTrac workers has allowed the partnership with Yancoal flourish. “Our relationship strengthened by us having the ability to work with them and provide extra gear, get near their enterprise, perceive their enterprise and ensure what we’re supplying is what they should ship the outcomes they want.”
Based on Bennett, having a powerful working relationship with WesTrac is essential to each Yancoal and the broader mining business. “Yancoal’s been right here for 20 years in Australia, we make investments domestically, we make use of domestically, we do enterprise with native companies. Our partnership [with WesTrac] into the long run will likely be actually necessary to verify each companies are sustainable and in the end, the business succeeds long run.”
Yancoal is dedicated to integrating sustainable practices and ideas throughout its operations, and to help with this mission, the miner has joined Caterpillar’s Pathways to Sustainability program. The academic program gives holistic studying alternatives and vitality transition recommendation to members, utilizing the most recent instruments and know-how to discover emission discount goals could be achieved.
Employees says Yancoal is trying ahead to participating within the four-year program. “Being a part of the Pathways program is thrilling, to see how we implement new applied sciences and new gear and reap the advantages of sustainability. We’re going to select a web site, which we predict will likely be MTW, to be that trial web site and do the Pathways program there, and any learnings we will then use throughout the group.”
As Morris explains, Pathways to Sustainability affords a collaborative strategy to incrementally introduce sustainability options. “The extra heads you get collectively, the extra consultants you set in a room, the extra prone to provide you with options. Everybody’s received the identical finish recreation and it’s about how we work collectively to get there efficiently so everybody wins.”
